Justin gets trash-talk too; he gets a Christian guy calling his infant daughter “ugly.”
Isn’t that nice? Isn’t that just how people ought to be to each other?
Fortunately she could pose for a dictionary definition of “adorable,” but the ugliness of saying things like that remains unchanged.
I don’t get this at all. I’m probably sheltered, or clueless, or something, but I don’t. I say very harsh things about the pope, and various atheist-bashers, and theocrats – but even then I don’t taunt them for being ugly or fat or old or bald or short or any other physical thing. I don’t. And I don’t understand the mentality of people who do – apart from psychopaths, that is. I don’t understand non-psychopathic people who (by definition) have some conscience and some empathy and still talk that kind of shit about people.
Ah well. You’re a beautiful baby, Zoe Griffith.
A good insult should be true, deserved, and precisely judged in weight to equal the offense. It should make passers-by cringe with glee, and, once the sting of insult has worn off, be treasured by the insulted as being worthy of a verbal barb from that deftly applied wit. Look to Winston Churchill as an example.
“ugly baby” is none of these, and it confirms my opinion that an insult reveals more about the insulter than the insulted.
I have several prejudices. I’m not prejudiced about what people are: race, national origin, ethnic origin, height, weight, sexual orientation, etc., aren’t things that trigger my prejudices. People have no control about their skin color or being GBLT, so it makes no sense to be prejudiced about those sorts of things.
My prejudices are about what people decide to be. I’m prejudiced against religious fundamentalists, accommodationists who tell gnu atheists “yer doin’ it rong”, and I’m particularly prejudiced against libertarians.
For some asshole to tell a father “your kid is ugly” is both stupid and hateful. It’s a form of bullying and I have a strong prejudice against bullies.
@’Tis Himself #2:
Libertarians really are worse than other religious fundamentalists, and we all should get in the good habit of including them in that category. At least more traditional religions admit to faith; libertarians think they’re skeptics despite their entire “philosophy” being a series of dogmatic faith-based assertions of moral absolutes that preclude the consideration of empirical reality.
And yeah, bullies definitely deserve whatever prejudice comes their way. That’s an exceedingly rational and helpful kind of prejudice.
You don’t need to insult people’s appearances or weight because your disgust and anger against them are actually warranted, and you’re actually educated and mature enough to put that anger into cogent criticism. Young children resort to name calling because they aren’t mature enough to even stop and think about why something makes them angry, much less analyze whether that anger is warranted and come up with a decent response if it is. Some adults never grow up, it seems. And it’s usually the ones that believe in irrational bullshit. Coincidence?
Isn’t this particular thing being a bit overblown? I mean this guy is 18 year old apparently and judging from his YouTube page has a bit of trouble living up to it. Seems neither particularly bright nor empathic, but is there a reason to think this behavior, ugly as it is admittedly, is because of his religion as the prime ingredient, rather than his personal characteristics and the anonymity of internet?
No. Any more silly questions ?
So whilst he is an adult you think we should let him off ?
It seems you did have another silly question. Yes, there is a reason. Experience. Pretty simple really. Do you have any excuse as to why you did not come up with it ?
There is an alternative explanation which I experienced at first hand,but for this you must have a very superstitious mind and cultural history(from Bulgaria particularly),but it is mostly done by older women – When this person encounter a baby or a child she says something like this “You are ugly – so the devil doesn’t hear”.But it doesn’t make it better or more acceptable.
Well, I was and still am certainly prepared to be proved otherwise Matt Penfold, even to accept that my question was indeed silly. If only I were to be convinced it were so.
Apart from the sycophancy in the comments, I (that is me personally) did not see much evidence as of yet, to suggest this particular person is all that devotedly religious. Sure he has it in for gay people, wrote some remark about how it’s always the freaks who make religion look bad, and opined on some argument of Ricky Gervais, so perhaps he would fit the description to some degree. But if all you have as evidence to bear in this particular case, where some anonymous adolescent is calling someone’s baby ugly, probably to get at her dad posting the video, is religiously motivated in any meaningful sense, is “experience” then I think I will wait for another attempt before changing my mind.
Well if you do not think there is a something wrong with such rudeness I doubt I will be able to convince you.
Other than the evidence you then go on to mention you mean ?
And there is some of the evidence that you claim does not exist. How can you forget what you wrote from one sentence to the next ?
I like how you put experience in scare quotes, as though that somehow means the evidence religious people are often rude goes away.
Care to explain this lack of honesty of your part ?
You also need to explain how you have missed the hatred and misogyny coming from part of the atheist community towards women in the last 12 months, and why you think condemning such behaviour is overblown.
As Ophelia was pointing out, there is a lot of such rudeness about. She thinks it is a problem, I think it is a problem as do others. You, as you have said, do not. The only other people I am aware of who see no problem with it are those engaged with it. Do you like keeping company with the slimepit ?
Matt Penfold, the reason I use the word ‘ particular’ is because I was referring to this and only this case. Not other cases, not sexism and outright misogyny within the atheist community nor specifically appalling behavior of some men in particular toward women at conferences. I do recognize that problem. Neither was I defending that behavior or gloss over that vile remark as such.
All I questioned here was whether the causal relationship between his alleged religious convictions and those awful remarks is really all that, well true actually. It could be. I just didn’t see the evidence. Still don’t.
As far as what counts as evidence we have different standards apparently. You seem impressed by a few factoids I dredged up from his YouTube page. I am not.
I did not put “experience” between scare quotes as such, but between quotes because it is a quotation, I was quoting you. Did not mean to suggest your experience has no basis in reality. I am not denying any of that.
Now I have been called silly, I have been called dishonest, You made a thinly veiled suggestion that I am a misogynist. You can go on with that, I don’t really care. But you have not actually brought any evidence to the table. I am beginning to think you can’t. Please show me that I am wrong, not that I am evil.
You’re the one who first mentioned such a relationship. Ophelia didn’t attribute his words to his religion; she didn’t speculate about his motivations at all. She said she doesn’t understand them.
That is not what the conversation is about. I suggest you go back read what Ophelia wrote again,since clearly you did not understand the first time.
Given those are part of the conversation, then sorry, you do not get to decide they are not. You seem to be rather arrogant.
Then make that argument, but in doing so do not dismiss those who have been the target of such talk by saying it is bit overblown.
You do know factoid is not a synonym for fact, but rather something that looks like fact but is actually untrue ?
Did you even realise you were admitting you were lying ?
That is not a valid use of quotation marks, so I do not believe your excuse.
You have been silly. You have admitted being dishonest (factoids!) and since you seem to support misogyny that would make you a misogynist.
Now it is obvious that your standards of behaviour are somewhat lower than those of Ophelia or myself. We cannot make you behave like a decent human being of course, but do not complain when the fact you are rather lacking in the manners department is pointed out to you.
Oh, and just so you know. We regard dishonest as being very rude around these parts. So buck your ideas up.
Yes that is true, Stacy. There remains the way out by plausible deniability. Wouldn’t that be a bit unfair to Matt? But anyway, this is not how the two (being a christian and insulting someone per his baby) are being conflated – I think disingenuously, though I think not maliciously – in this particular story.
The (rightfully so) proud dad, who said:
“First, jorrillabear’s religious beliefs led to the endorsement of child abuse. Then jorrillabear’s very next activity was to insult the physical appearance of a baby. What the fuck, over?”
And this is the way it is understood apparently by most commenters. So to just check this, out of curiosity, I went a bit through jorrilabear’s YouTube activities and I did not see the marks of an overly devout religious zealot. Instead I saw bits of embarrassingly poorly written prose from a bigot, who strongly dislikes white people and passionately hates gay people, has a bad taste in just about anything and I suspect may be an overall very disagreeable person. Yet, sadly enough, one would find he does not stand out much in the YouTube community. And he may be very different in person, although in this case I highly doubt it.
So I wasn’t the first to mention such a relationship. And I do not demand a causal relationship per se, lest I be accused of shifting the goalpost. That would be nearly impossible. Instead I would be satisfied by showing the plausibility of this guy being devoutly religious at all, which should in principle be very easy.
Albert Bakker –
Seems neither particularly bright nor empathic, but is there a reason to think this behavior, ugly as it is admittedly, is because of his religion as the prime ingredient, rather than his personal characteristics and the anonymity of internet?
No, but then I didn’t say there was.
Alright Matt, I am going to look into the correct use of quotation marks in English. Punctuation is a bit different than what I am accustomed to, so perhaps quotation marks are used differently too.
You are right about the word “factoids,” I guess I meant to say insignificant little tidbits of information that won’t allow you to draw any conclusions from them. For the rest I am going to leave it at this. Think about how insults, deliberate misunderstanding and abusive language is the exclusive domain of the religiously motivated.
What part of his think the pastor has a good point, and that homosexuality is a sin are you unable to understand ?
Can you not see how pretending that such a comment is not in all likelihood religiously inspired makes you look a fool and a liar.
The evidence has been provided, you just lack the integrity to admit it.
You inability to apologise for being less than honest is also noted.
Thank you Ophelia, that is a clear answer. Now I do not know exactly what to make of the post on Justin’s blog to which the text refers. But I’d rather not pursue it any further. I think I made my point.
I thought that the internet was great because it allowed sane people to challenge the lies that were constantly being propagated by religious leaders. Now I see that it has the advantage of allowing regular religious folk to parade their vileness, ignorance and stupidity before the population of the entire planet. Has anyone been over to Mano Singham’s blog to see the video clip of brainless woman defending the preacher who advocated concentration camps for gays?
Interesting that the women on FtB who have been getting insults from idiots lately have been insulted with “you’re ugly”. The man who got an insult got “your daughter is ugly”. Looks based insults are, apparently, restricted to women and girls. No matter how stupid the insult is.
Compare to the traditional gender based insults of bitch versus SOB or bastard: men aren’t insulted directly, only through their mothers.